If at First You Don't Succeed
by Lady-of-the-Refrigerator
Summary: <html><head></head>"Good Lord. Why can't it ever just be a puppy that follows you home?" Mr. Kaplan shook her head and held out her arms. "Come on, dearie. Give her to me and go get yourself cleaned up." [Post-S1 AU]</html>
1. Chapter 1

AN: In honor of 2x03's lovely dream sequence, I thought I'd try to finish up the first chapter of a fic inspired by a Lizzington dream I had a couple months ago, though my dream was a lot less, uh... exciting and a lot more angsty.

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><p>It was supposed to be a routine meeting. In and out. The targets weren't even particularly dangerous people, just average criminals with connections to bigger fish that were more to Red's taste. But if there was one thing Red had learned in life, one thing Liz was learning, it was that there was no such thing as an easy job. No, Murphy's law was alive and well. And fate, such as it was, had a sick, twisted sense of humor. The fact that it all began on a dark and stormy night was just icing on a cruelly ironic cake.<p>

Liz never liked storms. Even when she was a little girl, she dreaded them; unfortunately, that dread was something she never managed to grow out of. She and Mr. Kaplan were safely ensconced in their latest hideaway, one of Red's cabins off the beaten path somewhere in New England. (Although, off the beaten path was a bit generous—it was in the middle of nowhere.) Liz had been ready to call it quaint until the pitch black rainclouds rolled in and ruined the mood. What had been a hot, sticky day—almost unbearably humid—transformed into a windy, chilly night in the blink of an eye.

Red and Dembe had been gone for hours, much longer than they should have been, by the time the power failed, so Liz's nerves were already frayed. There had been a sense of foreboding weighing down on her since they set out into the storm and losing power only made it worse.

The generator in the old cabin only covered the ground floor. Liz followed Mr. Kaplan around while the other woman set about lighting hurricane lamps and building a fire on the hearth of the big stone fireplace in the living room. It was embarrassing that she felt the need to do it, but Mr. Kaplan didn't seem to mind.

Once the fire could sustain itself, Mr. Kaplan rummaged around in Red's liquor cabinet, pouring two tumblers of his finest Scotch and pressing one of them into Liz's hand.

"I figure he owes us," she said with a shrug. She curled up against the arm of the well-worn sofa and wrapped a throw blanket around her shoulders, sipping her drink and soaking up the heat from the fire.

Liz envied Mr. Kaplan's calmness. She knew she wouldn't be able to relax until Red and Dembe returned, or at least until the storm passed. She didn't want to disturb the woman by pacing on the squeaky floorboards; she wandered over to the window and squinted through the rain-streaked glass into the stormy darkness beyond.

Suddenly, in the distance, she could just begin to make out what looked like a pair of headlights. The tightness in her chest eased as they came closer and she recognized Red's car.

The garage door creaked and groaned as it opened, gravel crunched under the car's tires, and somewhere under the roaring wind and the booming thunder, Liz swore she could hear a baby crying. She and Mr. Kaplan rushed to the kitchen to find out what had kept them.

Liz's ears weren't, as she thought at first, playing tricks on her. Dembe stalked through the kitchen door first, obviously agitated. "He insisted on bringing her here."

Red walked in holding a tiny, wailing baby tucked close to his chest.

"Good Lord. Why can't it ever just be a puppy that follows you home?" Mr. Kaplan shook her head and held out her arms. "Come on, dearie. Give her to me and go get yourself cleaned up."

"It's not my blood," Red said, his voice hollow, almost robotic. He didn't move to hand the baby over; Mr. Kaplan had to coax him to let go of her.

"Still needs cleaning," she said, matter-of-fact, as she cradled the baby to her chest.

Red nodded and trudged up the stairs to his bedroom on autopilot. Anxiety spurred Liz to follow him, along with an all-encompassing gnawing in the pit of her stomach that told her he shouldn't be alone.

He didn't close his door completely, which was a bad sign in and of itself. She pushed it open the rest of the way to find him standing in the middle of the room staring off into the distance, looking lost, backlit only by the flashes of lightning coming in through the windows. Red's trench coat dripped onto the carpet, staining it pink with tiny droplets of blood diluted by rain. He had started shaking, a subtle tremble against the chill of his soaked clothing. Liz needed to get him dry and warm and relatively clean, and she needed to do it quickly.

"Do you have a lighter? Or matches?" He didn't answer. "Red?" She touched his forearm to get his attention and he flinched.

"What?"

"I need something to light the candles."

"Oh. Right." He dug around in an inner pocket of his coat and held a small metal lighter out to her. "Here."

The lighter had certainly seen better days, but it still lit on the first click and soon the room flickered with a warm glow in stark contrast to the crisp tension in the air.

She left the lighter on the dresser and steeled herself before reaching for the buttons on his coat. He did nothing to stop her.

His trench coat she tossed into the tub, his suit coat and vest were likely ruined by the blood that had seeped into them, but they weren't nearly as wet; she removed them anyway. Checking his dress shirt and trousers with a few discreet pats, she determined they could stay for the time being, saving them both the awkwardness of her stripping him down to his underthings. Not that he would have argued in the state he was in, or even noticed, really. He let her take off what she already had much too placidly than she would have liked.

While she gathered a washcloth and the old wash bowl from the dresser and filled it with warm, sudsy water, he wandered over to perch at the edge of the bed. She knelt before him and began to gently rinse the caked blood from the short hairs at his temples as he stared, unblinking, at nothing at all. She continued until his face was nearly clean, when suddenly, one of his hands shot out and grabbed her arm. She met his eyes in her surprise and found them wide and almost scared, pupils large in the limited light. His trance had broken and in its place she found only horror.

"They're dead," he said desperately. "They're all dead." He looked stricken, and his grip was just a bit too tight. "I couldn't save them. I tried, but… it was too late. There was so much blood."

She didn't bother to ask who he meant, just pried her arm free and took his hand in hers instead. Her other hand went to cradle his head, fingers rubbing soothingly at the nape of his neck.

"You saved the little girl," she said. "You saved _her_. That's what matters."

His face crumpled at her words; he folded in on himself, curling into the fetal position, his damp head on the pillows. A painful, keening noise escaped him.

She had never seen him like this. Hell, she had never needed to comfort a grown man who was crying inconsolably before. Her dad shed tears here and there, at her graduation and her wedding and sometimes during a sad movie, but never like this. This was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, outside of her own bouts of despair.

Not knowing what else to do, she crawled onto the bed and wrapped her arms around him, coaxing him to turn over and face her, her own eyes stinging with the beginning of sympathetic tears. She held him as he cried himself hoarse, as he lost his breath and his voice and clung to her like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to solid ground. The storm raged outside with an intensity she hoped drowned out his anguish; the only reason she was privy to it was because she'd forced her way into his room and he deserved some privacy, at least.

The candles on the dresser sputtered and died before his sobs finally began to subside. She tugged a couple blankets free from their feet at the foot of the bed and spread them over Red and herself. She rubbed at his back as he drifted off to sleep, his breathing even save for the occasional hitch. She pressed a kiss to the crown of his head and finally allowed herself to sleep as well.

Morning would come soon enough, and with it calmer skies. If they were all lucky, it would bring calmer hearts as well.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Liz noticed as she started to wake up was the almost overwhelming intensity of Red's scent. It permeated the cool air around her, was embedded in the pillow beneath her head, felt like it enveloped her completely. All of this should have served as a solid reminder to her groggy mind about just where she was, but somehow when she opened her eyes and found Red watching her, she still couldn't help but jump slightly in surprise.

This wasn't something they did, really. They didn't wake up in bed together. Not often, at least. It had happened before, a few times, but nothing untoward had. Comfort was in short supply on the run, and she had long ago reached the point where she wasn't going to pass it up even if it came from him. She didn't understand why she found him comforting; Lord knows it was the last thing he should be to her, but she couldn't help how she felt and she didn't bother questioning it. The inverse also appeared to be true—he obviously found comfort in her as well—and that, she thought, was all the justification she needed.

The morning sun streaming in through the blinds left streaks of light across his face and his eyes were as green and stormy as the sea. It was the crying, she thought. Her eyes always looked more striking after she cried.

He looked better this morning, more alert, a bit less haunted. He watched her with a quiet fascination that caused her cheeks to warm more every second he held her gaze. Sunlight shone on his long eyelashes and she tamped down the strange urge to brush her lips against the scrape on his cheek, settling instead for a gentle hand on his arm.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

The skin around his eyes crinkled as his lips curved in a faint smile. "I've been worse," he said, his voice still rough from sleep and overuse. The deep timbre of it made her stomach flutter and she swallowed reflexively.

Slowly, he reached up and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry you had to see that last night."

"It doesn't matter," she said; she took his hand and squeezed briefly. "I'm glad you weren't alone."

Liz watched, fascinated, as he brought her hand up to press a trail of tiny, lingering kisses along the length of her scar, stirring even more butterflies in her stomach. _To hell with it_, she thought. _He crossed the line first_.

She leaned forward to press a kiss to the scrape and when she pulled back, his eyebrows had crept up his forehead in surprise. She tried to brush off what she'd done with an amused huff of air and a shy smile, but she found her eyes being drawn to his mouth and his to hers, and her smile faded.

As if pulled by some invisible string, each of them inched forward again in fits and starts, tentative, cautious, until they met in the middle, lips touching for the first time.

There were butterflies, sure, but no fireworks. It wasn't that kind of kiss. It wasn't a kiss to arouse, but a kiss to calm, to reassure, to soothe. Solid, grounding, stabilizing. Intimate, but not a means to an end.

Red entwined his fingers with hers as the kiss tapered off and he pulled away. He gave a heavy, contented sigh and searched her face, his eyes bright.

"Thank you," he said, his voice thick, "for making sure I wasn't alone."

She gave him a half smile and brushed a few flakes of dried blood she missed washing off the night before from the hair above his ear.

"How the hell did you end up with a baby? I didn't realize we were in the kidnapping business."

There went that familiar tic again, under his eye. "She has no living family."

Liz searched his face, taking in the renewed tension and discomfort in his features. Putting it together with his behavior the night before, she could only come to one conclusion.

"Because of you?"

"Not directly," he said, with a small frown. "In a roundabout way, I'm still responsible."

Liz's brows furrowed as she watched him become more antsy and restless by the second. "The blacklister," she said.

Red nodded. "If I could have gotten to him sooner, her parents might have made it. I dragged my feet and they paid the price." He said everything in a rush, as if getting it out quicker would make it hurt less, like pulling off a band-aid.

Suddenly, he threw off the blankets, desperate to untangle himself and climb out of bed. Moving so quickly, however, proved to be a mistake.

"Oh, Jesus, _fuck_."

He grabbed at his shoulder; when he pulled his hand away, his fingers didn't come back clean.

"You said the blood wasn't yours." Her worry had already kicked into overdrive at his unexpected profanity; now she struggled against a panicky, weak feeling that threatened to empty her stomach at the sight of blood she knew belonged to him.

"Apparently I was wrong—adrenaline is a potent thing. Anyway, it wasn't all mine."

"Come with me," she said, tugging on his hand.

"Lizzy, you've done more than enough already. I can deal with it myself."

Liz shook her head, exasperated, and pulled him into the bathroom anyway. "If you try to do it yourself, you're only gonna make it worse."

She closed the lid on the toilet and patted it. Red dawdled, taking his sweet time shutting to door behind him. When he knew she wasn't going to put up with his procrastination any longer, he sat, looking for all the world like he was resigning himself to some grim fate. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes; he could be a hell of a drama queen when he wanted to be, but she figured his ordeal had earned him a free pass or two.

Slowly, carefully, she began to wet the fabric over the wound, hoping to soften the dried blood gently enough to be able to remove the shirt without causing any additional damage. It would probably start bleeding again no matter what she did, but at least the shirt wouldn't rip the scab off violently this way.

Red seemed to be bracing himself under her hands, whether it was from the pain or something else, she couldn't tell. He didn't flinch when she put pressure on the wound, though, and he made no sound at all.

"This'll be a lot less painful if we cut your shirt." She made a move for the first aid kit he kept stashed by the sink, but he closed his hand over hers on his uninjured shoulder, stopping her.

"Lizzy…" His jaw worked awkwardly, but no more words would form. He looked up at her, a pathetic, pleading expression on his face, silently begging her for… something.

They were interrupted by a knock at the bathroom door.

"Raymond? Agent Keen?"

"It's unlocked, Dembe."

"The two of you better be decent."

"When am I ever decent?" Red asked, sounding more like his public persona than he had all morning.

"All right, the two of you better be clothed."

"Well, then you better come in now and protect my virtue from Agent Keen."

Dembe pushed the door open and took in the scene before him, nodding absently before turning his attention to Liz.

"Mr. Kaplan is asking for you. The baby is fussy and she was hoping you'd have better luck calming her." Liz was about to protest, but he cut her off. "You took parenting classes to prepare for the adoption, it's fresher in your mind than it is in any of ours."

"Tell her I'll be with her as soon as I finish with Red."

"Now would be better. She hasn't slept a wink all night." Something in his tone suggested that he hadn't either.

Liz's grip tightened on Red's good shoulder, her thumb pressing into what felt like scar tissue beneath the fabric of his ruined shirt. "But—"

"Go, Lizzy," Red said, an odd urgent edge to his voice. "I'll be fine."

"I'll take care of him, Agent Keen."

Liz swallowed, set her jaw, and, with one last reluctant look at Red, went to see Mr. Kaplan.


End file.
